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Just the other day I was talking to a friend of mine and told her that I wanted to be like the person I used to be when I was twenty one years old. At that point in my life I felt I was on top of the world. I was going to college and was working full  time as a Detention Officer. For me eighteen dollars an hour was like winning the lotto, for I had not made that kind of money before. And so, just like a fool I let that get to my head, but not immediately. It took many years for me to really feel the change; however, those years before I think I changed were awesome. The feeling of being able to work and still go to school was liberating. Yeah I didn’t have a 4.0 average like the rest of my friends who just stayed home and only did school.

I was able to buy my own stuff, had my own ride, and most importantly I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Nothing would stop, my life had become a roller coaster of spontaneity and I freaking loved that. Even now that life has taken its toll on me and perhaps has even shaped me to a point that I am no longer my true self, I am still the master of doing whatever I want and whenever I feel like it. A lot of people, philosophers and what not, always say that you should live your life at the edge of the seat. I guess it’s better to live than to regret not living. However, my father who was a big influence in my life thought otherwise. He was so keen to holding dear to his beliefs of looking to the future. I must say that there has to be a healthy balance for one thing could destroy the other.

It always irked me when my father would give me unsolicited advice. I’m not saying that I am a bad son, or that he was bad at giving advice, I just think that his way of giving it might have not been the best. I don’t have any kids so I can’t truly say how I would do it… but I speculate that I would ease into it like I have when talking to my nieces. I’ve learned to make people feel comfortable when talking about touchy subjects, and can ease advice as if seemingly an idea of the person who I am talking to. I learned this my later years when working for a boss that was younger than me, someone who truly earns the title of a micro-manager.

So now this healthy mix I’ve come to find about is being able to live at the moment while saving for the future. And I’m not just talking about saving money for the future, but saving yourself from troubles that might appear in the future. This is what I tend to call being proactive as in preventing things from happening. I know that you can’t foresee everything that might come at you, but in the least you can manage to lessen the consequences or damage it might incur.

Going back to those years of when I was twenty one and felt like I was on top of the world I found myself to be at my happiest. I know that happiness is subjective and not a continuous state of mind, but rather an exclusive idea that comes and goes with time. At that time I wasn’t much of a party goer or a drinker; I was just a bit happy go lucky. I was a bit naïve and gullible, I easily fell to the temptations of peer pressure and self-destructive attitudes for the time being. I can’t truly blame my peers because nobody twisted my hand or put a gun to my head, but they did have some influence over me to the point that I didn’t want to be that boring dude.

Working as a Detention Officer is no easy task and eventually that world will influence you. As the years passed I become a different person. I was easily annoyed, pissed off, or just simply more of an asshole. Walking along with criminal minds from all walks of life creates a sense of self that not many people can relate to. It is just something that not everyone can do or deal with. Not only that, but many of my co-workers had mental issues that they often attempted to fix by self-medicating. And that medication was delicious beer.

In retrospect I can see how the lack of envisioning for a future and total self-abandonment because I was living so much in the moment that changed who I used to be. The way I thought, the way I saw myself and how I reacted to this world was different than when I was a young innocent man still full of dreams. Now, now I am not going to exaggerate anymore. It wasn’t totally that bad, but my dream wasn’t to go into law enforcement. As a matter of fact I didn’t even want to be a Detention Officer. It was my brother that got me into it. He kept insisting that I should apply and work with him. At first I stated at a part-timer working the weekends aka. The Weekend Warrior. But man, those checks looked so good that I decided to go full time head first into the abyss of pain and suffering.

I had a falling out later in life as I kept making the same mistakes and almost ruined my law enforcement career. And even though I didn’t ruin it, it’s kind of just broken down but now I was getting my Masters and worked full time as well. This time though, I learned so many skills and even had a 4.0 at one point. I eventually dropped it to a 3.4 because I started goofing off and partying too much. I was working as an armed guard and was making more than before. My life as a detention officer was over as it was something that I did not want to repeat. But some things don’t change, or the change is no minute that you repeat making the same mistakes over and over till life comes at you like a ton of bricks and just messes everything you had planned out.

I lost that job and ended with the opportunity to become a Criminal Justice Instructor, a position that seemed tempting and possibly very rewarding, but for some unknown dumb reason I decided to pass on it. Oh boy, did I suffer from that. I ended up working two minimum wage jobs for two years till I moved back into corrections. This time it was Community Corrections. And I was pretty good at it. I still didn’t like the feeling of being incarcerated myself with these people whom I try not to judge. I try to keep my judgment to myself because I don’t know what others are going through, and because of that I tend not to give unsolicited advice.

I eventually got bored and decided to do something different. I decided to get out of my comfort zone and just do something so wild that it might be rewarding. And because of this decision I ended up working in the oilfields. At first it wasn’t that bad since working in law enforcement usually comes with long hours and mental stress. I was used to working sixteen hour shifts that working the oilfields was not that bad. It wasn’t until the third week that I started feeling the difference. Holy moly was it freaking rough! In those three first weeks I put in a total of three hundred and thirty nine hours. When I was giving a few days off I came back to my hometown to visit. All my friends said I had aged so much. I looked in the mirror, boy were they right. My face looked like it had aged ten years and my head was now riddled with white.

I did learn much though, it was an experience of a lifetime which is scheduled to be written about for another time.